Endotracheal tubes and laryngeal tubes establish and maintain an airway in a patient for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. These tubes are commonly used to mechanically ventilate a patient's lungs during general anesthesia and resuscitation. They are also used in critical-care and emergency-medicine settings.
Once inserted, the airway tube must be secured to prevent the tube from moving in patient's throat during treatment. A variety of devices have been proposed for this purpose. Most of the recently proposed devices include a face plate having special adaptations for receiving and immobilizing the airway tube. In some of these devices, the face plate includes a “v-” or “u-” shaped tube-receiving surface that aligns with an opening through the face plate.
In use, after inserting an airway tube into a patient, a caregiver positions the face plate over the patient's face. The portion of the airway tube exiting the patient's oral cavity is positioned near the tube-receiving surface of the face plate. The caregiver then advances a clamping head towards the airway tube until they engage. Sandwiched between the clamping head and the tube-receiving surface, the airway tube is immobilized.
The clamping head is advanced using an actuating device, which the caregiver manipulates to move the clamping head into proper position. The most common implementations of the actuating device are a thumb screw or a ratchet assembly. Some examples of airway-tube holders that incorporate a thumb screw are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,402,776; 5,513,633; 6,067,985; and 8,360,063. Some examples of airway tube holders that use a ratchet assembly are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,010,484; 6,634,359 and in PCT Publication WO 2014/062012.
These and other prior-art airway tube holders have proven to be effective at immobilizing and stabilizing an airway tube. Yet they are, to varying degrees, uniformly cumbersome to use. As a consequence, the art would benefit from improvements in the ergonomics and other aspects of the design of airway-tube holders.